Monday, February 08, 2010

More on the 'Crowdsourcing Questions' Project

Shelly, this is a great idea and is one that I'll work to get my students to contribute to. Do you have any criteria for how the questions should be formulated (e.g. they must begin with "how" or "why"), the topics they should deal with, or the genre of historical question they should be (e.g. change over time or compare-contast)?

Also, is anyone with a Wikispaces account able to edit and contribute to your class wiki? My students all have Wikispaces accounts, so this shouldn't be too difficult (hopefully). Is there any particular way you'd like the students to contribute these questions (e.g. submitted to this blog? post directly to the wiki? signed with one's name?)

The type/format/gist of the questions are completely up to the creator of the question. The only thing I ask is that you consider (and I use that verb for specific reasons) that your audience is a class of high school Freshmen.

Weekly topics are typed in bold on the wiki at the start of each week's unit. Under the topic of the week is an essential question that each student will respond to as a weekly article. Under the weekly question is a list of daily questions -- these are the crowdsourced questions. Individually, students choose four dailies each week and blog on them. Then, we'll go back discuss and post to our magazine (still under construction) the best of the responses to the dailies in an effort to start a broader discussion online and beyond the limits of our classroom walls.

I've set up the wiki so that anyone can post questions. While I monitor all incoming edits, I trust our community to engage in a meaningful way with the wiki and I encourage folks to change things up and use the wiki as a starting point for your own discussions as well; already we've had three or four classrooms from other schools get in touch about sharing ideas and collaborating.

Post your questions directly to the wiki (I may edit them lightly or shift them to different parts of the wiki depending on what we're focusing on in class, but your questions will stand). As always online, I encourage folks to leave their real names and links both to demonstrate who they are and to encourage students to understand that learning is not merely a 'classroom-based' activity, but rather questions and ideas and learning come from engaging with the questions and ideas and learning of 'real people'.

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest in this project. I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Subscribe via RSS Reader

Teach Paperless: Now!

TeachPaperless began in February 2009 as a blog detailing the experiences of one teacher in a paperless classroom. It has grown to be something much more than that. In January 2011, TeachPaperless became a collaboratively written blog dedicated to conversation and commentary about the intertwined worlds of digital technology, new media, and education.

Buzz Paperless

TeachPaperless was noted as a Twitterer worth ReTweeting by Education Week's Digital Education blog. Also in Ed Week: "Shelly Blake-Plock has had some really intriguing posts already this year and I'm already behind. Considering he published 639 entries on his TeachPaperless blog in 2009 it's going to be hard to keep up, but well worth the try."

“When I originally contacted Shelley last week to inquire as to whether or not he would be willing to talk to my staff, he jumped right in, and he didn’t disappoint. What impressed me most about him as I listened to him describe his practice was his clear vision of what it meant for his students to function in a classroom that he designed: it was about them learning. He truly designed the environment with their learning–their unbridled learning–in mind. His decision was not a secretarial one, but rather came from a desire to push students to take control of information gathering, processing, and creating.” – Chalkdust 101

TeachPaperless was named one of the 'Top 25 Blogs for Educators' byWorld Wide Learn.

"I think you have some great ideas for teachers, and as we do professional development around the state of Maryland, we will point teachers to your blog." Debbie Vickers of Thinkport.org a partnership between Maryland Public Television and Johns Hopkins University's Center for Technology in Education

"The invention of the computer promised to lead us to a paperless society but has failed to deliver on that promise... until now, perhaps?" TeachPaperless was featured by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning as an Everyday Innovation

Your friendly contributing bloggers...

License and Disclaimer

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

You may re-use this content online for noncommercial purposes without needing to ask permission, as long as you credit the source in writing as Teach Paperless and on the web by adding a link back to our web site,www.teachpaperless.com

And of course, everything on this blog is the personal opinion of the individual bloggers and does not reflect the opinions of of anyone else, including employers, in any way. But that should be obvious by now.

Photo Credit: MJ Wojewodzki; a portion of a painted wall in the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii [2006]